


out of the aerie, into the fire

by cosmiclattes



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Gen, Kadar Al-Sayf Lives, Mystery, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Social Anxiety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27704372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmiclattes/pseuds/cosmiclattes
Summary: 1191,Malik has lost his arm and is sent to fill a role he never wanted. Altair is trying to right the wrongs he’s made and figure out where he stands (and who stands with him) in changing times. Kadar faces a decommission while trying to heal scars of his own.-OR-How one incident changed three peoples lives forever.
Kudos: 5





	out of the aerie, into the fire

There is no ceremony here.

The doors to the small infirmary room groan open as the newcomer enters. They hesitate just in the threshold, one hand pressed behind them to keep the door slightly ajar. The room smells like sickness. Sharp incense masking something decidedly bitter. That’s not what gives the messenger pause though.

Malik looks up.

“Haytham awaits you at the gates, master,” the voice is just barely above a whisper. The face it belongs to shrouded in shadow though Malik doesn’t need to see it to know—even in the haze of the medicine—where their eyes fell.

If he doesn’t think on it, he can ignore it. It’s easy, really. Almost too easy.

He stands and sways a bit (to his right, he notes. He ignores.) The infirmary attendant slips some final bottles of medicine and a list of instruction in his bag. The messenger hoists it over a shoulder and nudging the door open wider, allows Malik to be the first to step outside his home of four weeks into the cool, silent corridor of the main hall.

 _Consider it an honor,_ the mentor had said softly about a week prior. He had visited Malik in that very room. The attendants had propped him up with some pillows and opened a window, but he felt like one of the stuffed training mannequins posted around the training area. And twice as beat.

 _A demotion,_ he thinks.

The mentor frowns and Malik realizes a heartbeat later he’s said that out loud.

_No. The role of rafiq is one that must be earned. One must be intelligent. Observant and quick. Have their wits about them..._

He leans forward, elbows braced against Malik’s bed and fingers steepled. _It’s no secret you possess not only impeccable sword skill, but a sharp mind too. You were a rare thing. Special._

“Where?” Malik croaked, already weary of the flattery.

He thinks the smile the mentor offers is meant to be a soothing one, though it looks wolffish...

The floor is empty as he and the messenger emerge into the open hall of the second level. Sunlight pools through the windows at the top of the staircase, bathing the lower levels in warm gold. It’s early. Only a few scribes moving about below when Malik glances over the banister. But there’s another figure that gives him pause. They slowly pace the distance between two columns, hands clasped behind their back and head down turned. Malik doesn’t need to see them to immediately know who it is. He recognizes those steps anywhere. The wild tangle of dark hair, practically his own.

The sea glass eyes that snap upwards upon feeling watched, however, are purely Kadar’s.

“Malik,” he says by way of greeting, meeting his brother at the end of the stair case. The messenger graciously side stepping the young man and slipping outside, affording the pair a moment of privacy.

“I don’t...” Kadar starts. Stops. “I don’t know what to say.” 

“All is well,” Malik says. His voice doesn’t sound his own. He wonders briefly just how much medicine the attendant gave him that morning.

But Kadar frowns.

Not a full one. There’s a gentle pinch between his eyebrows and his lips press together, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “How can you say that?” He breathes.

Malik only blinks.

Once upon a time, when Malik was a good two heads taller than Kadar and his brother wasn’t even in his novice grays yet, he believed everything Malik told him. Without question. If Malik told him the sky was green, he’d believe it. Even if his eyes told him otherwise. It’s nothing like the man stood before him at eye level, arms folded and the hint of deep purple coloring the skin below his eyes. Malik feels his chest squeeze at the realization that Kadar wasn’t that boy anymore. Wouldn’t ever be again.

And more importantly, he was asking a very valid question.

“You’ve made leaps of faith before, Kadar,” Malik says, “I’m asking you to take one now.”

To his relief, Kadar nods. One quick dip of the head, and because Malik can’t look at him anymore, can’t look at the uncertainty there, he reaches forward, tugging his brother into a half embrace with a hand at the back of his neck. It’s a battle of wills not to let his emotions get the best of him when Kadar crosses his own arms tightly over his back. He doesn’t know why he’s so upset. He isn’t like that normally. He thinks, at least, he isn’t.

Normal for him, he suspects, has gone on voyage and won’t be returning for the foreseeable future...

He pulls Kadar back, clapping him gently on the cheek once, twice. He turns to leave. As he does, he can see Kadar in his peripheral resume his pace. Hands at his back. He stops at the column opposite with his back to the door. Malik doesn’t look back.

“Fine weather for travel,” the messenger is saying as he secures the bag to Malik’s horse. The morning is cool and the valley steeped in fog when Malik passes the sentries at the gate. He adjusts his scarf, tucking the fabric into his outer coat and joins the messenger and Haytham, the latter already in his saddle and looking at something back the way Malik had come. When he drops his eyes to the newest arrival, he smiles. It’s genuine and bright. Malik thinks it’s no wonder he and his brother were such close friends.

_And surely no coincidence,_ he muses, _why it’s he who volunteered to escort him to his position in the first place._

“Ready?” Haytham says when Malik swings himself up and into the saddle. His head swims and his arm protests in vain in its bandages. He ignores it. It’s easy.

With one final look at the imposing castle, its stone walls and towers, the buttresses and iron work holding it together, he nods. Thinks he catches a glimpse of a familiar figure watching from far, far above. Lurking like a ghost along the wall walk at the other end of the yard. 

Watching him.

Malik turns back to Haytham.

“I’m ready.”

* * *

  
It’s not that Kadar didn’t like heights.  


He  was used to them.  


He had to be.  


It was just that every time he was high enough where the wind was rough and anyone below him was indistinguishable, his stomach lurched. He thinks it’s normal maybe. That split second of hesitance before muscle memory kicks in.  


Except as of late it happens when his feet are firmly on the ground. 

It’s...uncomfortable. How he can be walking through the courtyard, hear the sound of the forger hammering at steel and have to fight the urge to look behind him. It’s uncomfortable how his dreams aren’t dreams anymore, but _memories_. 

Sometimes they took a fantastical turn, sure. A Templar knights reanimated body slowly stalking him through a dimly lit corridor, was the most recent one. There’s blood on Kadar’s hands and he doesn’t know who’s it is. There always is. And maybe that’s why these dreams are so frightening. He can’t wake up and be relieved they _won’t_ happen.

They already _had_. 

And they won’t let him go.

Sighing, he leans against the archway of the main hall, scrubbing at his eyes with the palms of both hands, letting them drop down his cheeks and frowning at the roughness there. When was the last time he shaved? He used to be on top of this...

“Ah, pardon me, my son.”

He flinches, just barely noticeable, but enough to make his muscles painfully lock up as the scribe passes him with a friendly hand to his arm. There’s a lingering warmth there. Kadar half expects to touch it and—

_His arm is sore but Malik’s is bleeding._

_Bleeding, bleeding, and won’t stop._

_His hands peel away from his brothers arm and he stands quickly. They have to go.  
_

_Now._

No. All is well.

Shivering, Kadar reaches in his pocket and pulls the correspondence free. A mission. He’s to meet with his instructor about the details in an hour. 

Looking one last time to the gates where Haytham gave him a reassuring nod, he hurries across the courtyard and to the instructors hall.

All is well, all is well.


End file.
